Page 15 of Gone for You

“No rush,” he tells her, but he’s looking at me, “we aren’t finished with our time together yet. I haven’t learned nearly enough.”

She nods and moves away.

“How’d you and Lily meet?”

“We’ve known each other forever. Grew up in the same town but we went to different colleges.”

“I was going to ask that, where you went to school. I guess I had wondered if you'd end up at Southeast Michigan with your brother.”

“Yeah, that was the original plan but I changed my mind during my senior year and went to Iowa. It’s hard to explain, but I just needed to be me. Somewhere no one knew who I was.” His head turns to the side and he encourages me to continue. “So, it’s like this. In my hometown, I was always Owen’s little sister or Dennis and Joan’s daughter. When my parents got a divorce, everyone in town knew about it. They’d been cheating on each other and word spread like wild fire in our small town.”

“You needed anonymity.”

“Yes.”

“Okay, so you know I have a brother. Do you have siblings?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “Only child. It was just Dad and me.”

“Where’s your mom?” My cheeks instantly flush with embarrassment. “Oh my gosh, that was a rude way of asking!”

He chuckles and my anxiety eases. “It’s okay. I let it go years ago. She left when I was a baby.”

I gasp and can’t even help it when I ask, “A baby?”

He nods and his lips scrunch up and pinch. “Yup. Like I said, I let it go years ago. No use in harboring that kind of anger. My dad has told me bits and pieces over the years but he really didn’t know much about her. They had a fling while he was on vacation in Cancun and ended up exchanging numbers right before he came home even though he never expected to hear from her again. Seven months later she called, told him about me and she came and visited him on a visa. She lived with him because she didn’t have anywhere else to go and, according to Dad, they got along well enough but were far from being in love. They were young, didn’t know what the hell they were doing. Two weeks after I was born, she was gone. Back to Mexico. He tried finding her, of course, but yeah, she didn’t want to be found.”

“Wow. Your dad raised you on his own?”

“He did. His friends were his biggest support. I have lots of pseudo aunts and uncles who helped so he could do it.”

“No grandparents?”

He shifts in his chair, eyes dart to the side quickly. They hold so much emotion. Sadness. Anger. “They uh, didn’t approve.”

“You mean… because you—“

He nods and my heart breaks. “Yeah, basically because I’m not white. Dad made them make a choice. Either accept it or move on. They couldn’t accept it so it was just us.”

“So that’s where you get your color from, huh?”

“It is. Dad and I look surprisingly alike, but it didn’t matter to his parents.”

“Have you ever met them?”

“My dad’s parents?” he asks, and I nod. I also don’t miss that he doesn’t call them his grandparents. He seems to relax a bit when I continue asking questions, which I’m grateful for. I expected him to clam up, I suppose. If my mom abandoned me as an infant, I’m not sure how much I’d want to talk about it.

“I’ve met them a few times. When I was six, my dad and I were at Wal-Mart and bumped into them. I remember trying to hide behind his legs because this strange lady kept staring at me and Dad seemed angry. He didn’t tell me who they were until we saw them again when I was nine. I have no idea how I remember seeing them either time. I was so young; I guess it was memorable enough or maybe it was because it was significant and something in me held on to it.”

“Makes sense. My friend you met last night? Lily? She’s a social worker. She has said before that it’s amazing how kids’ memories latch on to certain things that seem so little or insignificant at the time but in reality, it’s actually a big deal.”

“Exactly. Funny how our minds work, isn’t it?”

I pluck off a small section of cinnamon roll and plop it into my mouth, even though I’m not hungry. But I can’t help myself from picking. “So the second time, when you were nine? That’s when you found out who they were?”

He lifts a piece of cantaloupe out of the bowl and eats it. “Yeah. It was kind of the same type of situation, only we were out to eat for my birthday at a pizza place that has games. I’d just won a ton of tickets and my dad and all his friends were cheering, making a big deal out of it.” He smiles at the memory, it’s crooked and boyish and super freaking cute. “Anyway, I’d just picked my prizes from the counter and was so proud of my stash. Especially the whoopee cushion. My dad showed me how to blow it up and my uncle Jay shoved it under his butt and sat on it, making a huge racket. We were cracking up when they walked up. Again, I remember wanting to hide because my dad’s mom wouldn’t stop staring at me. Now I realize it was because she just wanted to see me. I don’t have kids but even I can’t imagine turning my back on them or their kids. I mean, who does that?”

“I don’t know.” My answer doesn’t provide any answers but it’s full of honesty.

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